Issue No. 41 www.winestory.com.ph

THIS MONTH’S ISSUE : Wine and Chocolate: A Winning Combo for Valentine’s Day . Chateau Calon-Segur’s Heart . Gail Sotelo’s Wine Story

Editorial Staff

Roederer sells Chateau Bernadotte to King Power Group

By: Richard Woodard

Champagne Louis Roederer has sold one of its Bordeaux properties, Chateau Bernadotte, to the Hong Kong-based King Power Group, a leading travel retail and duty free business.

The Cru Bourgeois property in Saint-Sauveur, near Pauillac, was part of Roederer’s 2006 acquisition of a majority stake in famed Pauillac estate Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande from May-Eliane de Lencquesaing.

Chateau Bernadotte has a 40-hectare vineyard in the Haut-Medoc appellation and produces about 200,000 bottles of wine a year.

King Power has a diverse array of interests including property investment, manufacturing, sports and health services, but is best-known as a duty free and travel retail operator.

Also the owner of the Agatha fashion accessories brand, it has a retail network selling luxury brands such as Dom Perignon and Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, plus leading Cognac houses Hennessy, Remy Martin and Martell.

In a joint statement by the two companies, King Power said it would use its retail network, especially in travel retail, to support development of Bernadotte on the international market.

The deal comes less than three weeks after former Chateau Montrose COO Nicolas Glumineau took over the running of Roederer’s Bordeaux properties from Sylvie Cazes.

As well as Pichon Lalande, Roederer also owns two properties in St-Estephe: Chateau de Pez and Chateau Haut Beausejour.

Source: decanter.com

Uncorking the best wine spas

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Recent studies suggesting that the French suffer less heart disease due to a regular intake of wine confirmed what most oenophiles have long suspected: wine not only tastes good - it’s also good for you. But the rejuvenative qualities in a bottle of Burgundy or a carafe of Cabernet tell only half the story. Grapes, and their seeds and vines, contain some of nature’s most powerful antioxidants, helping to account for the hottest trend in the spa industry: wine and grape-based treatments, known as vinotherapy.

Spa-goers are now cleansing their faces with Merlot wraps, exfoliating with crushed Cabernet scrubs, and soaking themselves in vats of spring water treated with the extract of red grape vines, all of which help soothe, moisturise and protect the skin. It appears Cleopatra was on to something when she bathed in tubs of wine 2,000 years ago.

In fact, it’s rare to find a spa these days that doesn’t feature some kind of vinotherapy. Across Europe, spas are using London-based ISHI Elements, a “gourmet skinfood” company that creates creams and oils from Sangiovese, Chardonnay and Pinot grapes sourced from organic vines in Tuscany. In New York, Delluva Vinotherapy Day Spa, based entirely

around wine therapy, opened in trendy Tribeca in January, featuring products derived from the Pinotage grape in South Africa. And resorts from the Hive Spa in Los Cabos in Mexico to The Inn at Camelback in Arizona now offer wine treatments using Olavie’s Le Vin range of oils made from Chardonnay grape seed.

But wine spa treatments are one thing; travelling to wine country to have them is the ultimate vinotherapy experience, and chic wine spa hotels and luxury vinotherapy resorts are springing up on vineyards and wine estates all over the world.

“Wine spa hotels have added an extra level of luxury and decadence to the whole spa-going experience,” says Terri Fleeman-Hardwick, editor of Spa World magazine, the British spa-goers’ bible. “People are always looking for something new and vinotherapy carries the gourmet thing that much farther. What can be better than getting a grape-seed scrub at a spa on a wine estate - and then getting to taste the wine derived from the vineyards outside?”

While the UK may not be known for its wines, Fleeman-Hardwick swears by The Vineyard at Stockcross, a new wine-

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source: travel.nytimes.com

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Here are some more heavenly matches:

Bittersweet Chocolate paired with Shiraz

• The bitter and earthy chocolate will find its mate

with a slightly fruity yet spicy Shiraz.

White Chocolate paired with Riesling

• The citrus notes in the wine will balance out the super sweet, milk-and-honey taste of the chocolate.

Milk Chocolate paired with Sauternes

• The sweet and rich chocolate will need an equally sweet wine, or you’ll risk that pucker from the wine. Try a Port or Sauteres, dessert wines with sweetness but still bold enough to drink anytime.

Mint Chocolate paired with Cabernet Sauvignon

• Bring out the slightly sour mint complexion with the spice and richness of a Cab.

But truly, whatever combo you choose will go down with sweetness. After all, wine and chocolate are a dangerous — but delicious — duo.

Source: newsfeed.time.com

Chateau Calon-Segur is a Third Growth (3ème Cru) from Saint Estèphe. “Calon” meaning little river skiff used in Middle Ages to ferry timber across the Gironde estuary, gave name to the district which was at one point known as Calones or Saint-Estèphe-de-Calon.

In early times, Château Calon-Ségur was one of the original three vineyards in Saint-Estèphe, and in 1825 Château Montrose (in 1855 classified as a Second Growth) was a forest-land parcel belonging to the Calon-Ségur estate.

By marriage, the estate came to be owned by Nicolas-Alexandre, marquis de Ségur who also owned Chateau Latour and Chateau Lafite. Despite his ownership of these two First Growths, the Marquis said that his “heart belonged to Calon” and the wine’s label today includes a drawing of a heart around the Chateau’s name. This wine is a keeper!

As if the thought wasn’t enough, make your loved one swoon even more with a perfect pairing.

The intricate flavours of chocolate and wine linger on your tongue – and often the complex, deep, hidden tastes are subconscious. Make them rise to the surface by mating your chocolate with the perfect wine.

CNN spoke to Sunset wine editor Sara Schneider to figure out what will make the flavours of both sweet treats pop out. We’ll start off with the obvious: dark chocolate goes best with red wine. But beware of pairing the delectable dark chocolate with spicy, acidic wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. The bold tannins that give the wine a dry, puckery feeling can be too harsh against the bitter chocolate.

Instead, Schneider recommends a Merlot, which has a softer, fruitier flavour. “The chocolate shouldn’t be sweeter than the wine,” she says. It’s all about flavour matching. If you can’t pick out the tastes on your tongue, the labels of both the wine and the chocolate can often point you (and your palate) in the right direction.

Wine and Chocolate: A Winning Combo for Valentine’s Day

By: Nick Carbone

themed hotel in Berkshire owned by California wine-maker Peter Michael, where you can follow a lavish vinotherapy treatment with a gourmet meal in a restaurant with two Michelin stars that features a 23,000-bottle wine list.

Talking of California, Mary Blackmon, founder of online directory www.spa-addicts.com, noted a sudden spike in the appeal of vinotherapy after the hit 2004 film Sideways. “We were getting hundreds of inquiries from people who wanted to visit spas in the Californian wine country of the film. When we started pointing out that some spas specialised in wine treatments, they became even more popular.”

Fittingly, the origins of vinotherapy and wine spa hotels can be traced back to France. It was on her family’s vineyard in Bordeaux in 1993 that Mathilde Thomas and her husband Bertrand met eminent pharmacologist Dr. Joseph Vercauteren, who had discovered that grape seeds were rich in the antioxidant polyphenol back in 1970.

Using grape products harvested on their Château Smith Haut Lafitte estate in Bordeaux, the Thomases created the Caudalie skincare line in 1995, used by the likes of Madonna and Isabelle Adjani, and in 1999 trademarked the name Caudalie Vinothérapie when they opened the world’s first vinotherapy hotel, Les Sources de Caudalie, on the estate. Treatments there include a massage using fresh grapes that are crushed over the body.

To date, Les Sources de Caudalie is no longer the most famous Caudalie Vinothérapie spa. That honour now goes to the surreal, titanium-clad, $100 million Marqués de Riscal Hotel, designed by Frank Gehry. Opened in Rioja wine country in Spain in 2006, it is tipped to do for the region what Gehry’s Guggenheim did for Bilbao. Apart from the 43 rooms in the main building, and a restaurant run by Michelin-starred chef Francisco Paniego, the hotel’s state-of-the-art Caudalie Vinothérapie Spa has a heated indoor pool lined with Cabernet-red relaxation beds and hot tubs shaped like oak barrels for that signature Red Vine Bath.

Unlikely as it may seem, another wine spa hotel became a site of architectural pilgrimage a year before the Marqués de Riscal. The Wine & Spa Resort Loisium Hotel, designed by US architect Stephen Holl and set in rolling vineyards in Austrian wine country, is a bizarre, cube-shaped aluminum-clad hotel resembling an artfully crumpled wine foil. Built over 900-year-old wine vaults, the 83-room property has a wine library, a centre for talks and tastings, and a gleaming Aveda Destination Spa set over three levels, specialising in vinotherapy.

Therapy concept founder, Mathilde Thomas seems unruffled by the new wave of rival wine cosmetics companies and spas. “On the contrary,” she says: “It makes me feel proud to see how quickly wine therapy has grown.” But she does warn that not all wine spas are the real thing. Contrary to some perceptions, drinking wine during a treatment is not encouraged. “You should drink water, of course. Only afterwards can you drink wine, over a good meal.” As for bathing in wine à la Cleopatra, as some spas suggest, that’s a complete no-no.

“Bathing in wine is definitely not good for you. You should bathe in spring water treated with the extract of red vines, which is good for the circulation and the skin.” Does it work? Try it for yourself....

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Uncorking the best...from page 1

Chateau Calon-Segur’s Heart

Issue No. 43 www.winestory.com.ph

Gail Sotelo is currently an instructor for De La Salle College of Saint Benilde School of Hotel and Restaurant Institution Management. She also does wine consultancy and training for restaurants and hotels. Her hobbies include eating out with her husband and friends, travelling, cooking, and reading. Some of her advocacies include helping find a cure for children’s cancer, and promoting better health.

Q: How did you get into wine?

A. I have fond memories of my mother preparing me for the dating scene as a teenager by giving me wine at home. She had the best rationale ever: I had to feel what alcohol is like in my system before boys gave me any. I remember her telling me that she started me off with wine and that if the boy I dated gave me beer, he was cheap and not worth my time. Oddly enough, I remember the bottle being a Tempranillo.

Q: What is wine for you?

A. Wine for me is a wonderful opportunity to travel different parts of the world in one glass. Wines will always be an expression of how the region is in terms of winemaking, culture, and physical conditions. I like imagining what the people who made the glass I’m enjoying are like. Q: What was your first favourite wine?

A. I’m not ashamed to say that I started off having a “chick”/ “girly” wine in the form of a White Zin as my first favorite wine (about 10 years ago). I’m happy to have evolved and having expanded my horizons, but I will never be ashamed to say I started off with that.

Q: What was the wine that changed your life?

A. I had the good fortune of having had a 1979 Charmes-Chambertin which my husband and I took home from Burgundy (with a thousand apologies to our wine guy from Beaune). I never knew vintage Burgundy could both be relatively affordable and phenomenal. It set me off on my Burgundy/Pinot Noir phase.

Q: What is your favourite food and wine pairing?

A. Japanese food and a good Pinot Noir; if I’m feeling both snobby and adventurous, Sushi and a good Burgundy.

Q: What are the wines you drink now?

A. After I ended my Pinot Noir phase, I recently went through a jammy Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz phase. I’m now in a Gewurtz/Sauternes phase.

Q: What are your dream wines (those you would like to acquire/drink someday soon)?

A. A Chateau Petrus in my birth year (which will, for the moment, remain a mystery). My birth year is a phenomenal year for Bordeaux, and I hear that specifically for Petrus, it’s awesome (comes with a steep price tag too).

Q: Have you had any formal training in wine? If yes, where and what courses are these?

A. I went through the Bordeaux class with AWSEC/Wine Story and of course the WSET Level 3.

Q: What’s the most valuable wine lesson you’ve learnt as a wine lover/enthusiast?

A. My most valuable wine lesson is not to be a wine snob. There are so many great wines out there in all price ranges and in different iterations; it’s a shame to just stick to the pricey stuff. For our school, my colleague and I manage to find relatively affordable wines which surprise us in terms of quality.

Gail Sotelo

What’s Your Wine Story?

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Chateau Margaux 2008 75clMargaux, Bordeaux, FranceDrink by: 2011 - 204194 points, Robert Parker

First Growth Wines for Chinese New Year

Latour 2009 75clPauillac, Bordeaux, France100 points, Robert Parker

Lafite-Rothschild 1990 75clPauillac, Bordeaux, FranceDrink by: 2014 – 204496 points, Robert Parker

Haut Brion 1995 75clPessac Leognan, Bordeaux, FranceDrink by: 2003 – 203596 points, Robert Parker

Mouton-Rothschild 2009Pauillac, Bordeaux, France99+ points, Robert Parker

Petrus 2007 75clPomerol, Bordeaux, FranceDrink by: 2010 – 202591 points, Robert Parker